Footnotes

AN EXCEPTIONAL COPY OF 'PICKWICK' IN BOOK FORM: WITH ALL THE EARLY ISSUE TEXT POINTS, ALL THE KEY PLATES IN THE FIRST STATE, AND ONE OF "THE RAREST OF ALL PICKWICK PLATES".

Text:

Rather remarkably, this copy has every first issue point noted by Hatton & Cleaver, with the exception of the impossibly rare early page variant ("only twice has it come under writer's notice", Hatton & Cleaver, p.56), being page 261 with the signature mark N2 rather than the correct X2 as in our copy.

Plates:

The present copy has the vast majority of the plates in the first state recorded by either Johannsen, Miller & Strange or Hatton & Cleaver (or all three), including the Seymour plates, and also has the two Buss plates. A few of the plates are Hatton & Cleaver's "second plate", but according to Johannsen at least two of these are not genuine second plates but simply have the page number burnished out.

Copies with the first plate ('Mr. Pickwick addressing the Club') in the first state are particularly scarce, John F. Dexter suggesting that of the first issue of 400 copies of part 1, "I very much doubt whether more than 50 impressions in first state were obtained from the first set of steels" (Johannsen, p.2). Also present here is the extremely scarce Plate 14, one of two incorrectly paginated (as 169): "In point of rarity, however, none exceed the two plates as originally etched for Part 6. To quote again the words of J.F. Dexter, 'they are the greatest rarity known to me in this book'" (Hatton & Cleaver, p.22). Plate 15 has the correct page number (154).

List of plates with Johannsen and Hatton & Cleaver references:

1. Mr Pickwick Addresses the Club: Plate A, First state, signature faint but visible.
2. The Pugnacious Cabman: Plate A, First state, signature legible.
3. The Sagacious Dog: Plate A, the gun with hammer and trigger and no break in the barrel. Johannsen, Miller & Strange and J. Christian Bay all disagree with Hatton & Cleaver's assertion that the first state has the break in the gun.
4. Dr. Slammer's Defiance of Jingle: Plate A, First state.
5-7: All Plate A, First state.
8-9: The two Buss plates.
10. The Breakdown: Plate A, First state (the 'NE' in 'NEMO' just visible under magnification).
11. The First Appearance of Mr. Samuel Weller: Plate A1 (cane showing a break), First state, with 'NEMO' signature.
12. Mrs. Bardell Faints in Mr Pickwick's Arms: Plate A2 (faces slightly retouched), First state.
13. The Election at Eatonswill: Plate A1 (staff faintly etched), First state.
14. Mrs. Leo Hunter's Fancy-Dress Dejeune: Plate A (with incorrect page number 169, making it "the rarest of all Pickwick plates"), First state.
15. The Unexpected Breaking-Up of the Seminary for Young Ladies: Plate A (correctly paginated 169), First state.
16-21. All Plate A.
22. Christmas Eve at M. Wardle's: Plate A, First plate.
23. The Goblin and the Sexton: Plate B1 (knot in place of a face in tree trunk), First plate.
24. Mr. Pickwick Slides: Plate A, First state.
25. The First Interview with Mr. Sergeant Snubbin: Plate B1 (no roll of paper), Second plate.
26. The Valentine: Plate A2 (with number burnished out), Second plate, first state. This and all following plates have no etched page number.
27. The Trial: Plate B1, Second plate, first state.
28. The Card Room at Bath: Plate A, First plate.
29. Mr Winkle's situation when the door blew to: Plate B1, Second plate..
30. Conviviality at Bob Sawyer's: Plate A, First plate.
31. Mr Pickwick Sits for his Portrait: Plate B1, Second plate.
32. The Warden's Room: Plate A, First plate.
33. Discovery of Jingle in the Fleet: Plate A, First plate.
34. The Red-nosed Man Discourseth: Plate B1, Second plate.
35. Mrs Bardell Encounters Mr. Pickwick in the Prison: Plate A, First plate.
36. Mr Winkle Returns under Extraordinary Circumstances: Plate A, First plate.
37. The Ghostly Passengers in the Ghost of a Mail: Plate B1, Second plate.
38. Mr. Bob Sawyer's Mode of Travelling: Plate A, First plate.
39. The Rival Editors: Plate A, First plate.
40. Mary and the Fat Boy: Plate A, First plate.
41. Mr. Weller and His Friends Drinking to Mr. Pell: Plate A, First plate.
42. Frontispiece: Plate A, First plate.
43. Etched title: Plate A: First plate.

References:

Albert Johannsen, Phiz Illustrations from the Novels of Charles Dickens, 1956; Thomas Hatton & Arthur. H. Cleaver, A Bibliography f the Periodical Works of Charles Dickens,, 1933; W. Miller & E.H. Strange, A Centenary Bibliography of the Pickwick Papers, 1936; J. Christian Bay, ('The Pickwick Papers', in Amateur Book Collector I, December 1950, pp.7-8).